Craft breweries and liquor distillers in California could get shots of new business as a result of two new state laws taking effect in 2014. And as Ben Adler reports from Sacramento, beer and liquor drinkers will likely be happy as well.

Wine tasting is big business these days. Beer tasting, too. But not liquor tasting – at least, not in California. Until now, liquor distillers could offer tastings; they just couldn’t charge for them. Now, they can. Lance Winters with St. George Spirits in Alameda says he can’t afford to offer free tastings. Now, he hopes to draw more customers to his distillery, and compete with breweries and wineries.

Winters: “What we’ll do is we’ll have probably three different flights available. And the first one will be the basic flight, which will probably be $10 or $15. And then we’ll have flights that’ll include more expensive products for a slightly higher tasting fee.”

Another new law is intended to help craft breweries grow. It allows them to refill large glass bottles known as “growlers” that were purchased elsewhere.

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The craft distilling industry, much like the craft brewing industry, is taking off across the nation. The trend is on par in the San Joaquin Valley as well, a region where experts say there are more unauthorized distillers than legal – a sign that the region may see a boom in legal distilleries just like it has with craft beer. And when Governor Brown signed AB 933 in September, craft distilleries in California came out ahead with the newly gained ability to offer tastings.

Anyone who gives up gluten, either by choice or medical necessity, will inevitably feel a twinge of regret bidding adieu to bread, pasta or pastries. But for some, the greatest hardship may be saying no to beer — especially at times like Super Bowl Sunday, when having a cold one in hand is part of many people's game day tradition.

So it's no small thing that a growing number of brewers are offering gluten-free beers that are both tasty and satisfying.

Last week, Aaron Kleidon went for a walk in the Illinois woods and returned with a bag of lotus seeds. The seeds were bound not for his dinner plate, but for his pint glass.

In a few months, Kleidon will have lotus-flavored beer at the small brewpub Scratch Brewing Company, which he owns with two friends in Ava, Ill. The microbrewery specializes in beers with seeds, leaves, roots, fruits and fungi foraged from a nearby wooded property. The brewers have even made a saison from chanterelle mushrooms.

In the U.S., we drink $200 billion worth of the hops-brewed libation annually. What many Americans might not know is that most domestic beer, 90 percent in fact, is dominated by just two companies: Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors.